Being Alive

Artwork and poetry competition winners announced

Bermuda Hospitals Board and Friends of Hospice announce the winners of the Being Alive artwork and poetry competition. The competition, open to the public at large, is part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of Agape House, Bermuda’s only palliative care hospice.

Participants submitted their original works of art and poetry/prose on the theme Being Alive. In total, 9 works of art and 11 poems were submitted. Three judges met and decided on winners in each of the two categories. Judges of the artwork were: Danjou Anderson, Gallery Director of Windjammer3 Gallery; Nzingha Ming, Gallery Director of Bermuda Society of Arts and Elise Outerbridge, Curator and Director of Collections for Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. Local poets Nick Hutchings, Stephan Johnstone and Anna Nowak judged the poetry entries.

Winning entries will be hung in Agape House.

In the artwork section Alan C Smith won first place with his digital image “Trees”, Nicky Gurrett received second place with her vibrant oil on canvas “Movement galore” and Shereet Fern was awarded 3rd place for her mixed media submission “Beach Combing”.

The winning poem was “Finding the Sun” by Kelly Exell. “Seemingly harmless” by Donna-Marie Bell came second while” My journey with Cancer” by Millie Dyer placed third.

“Friends of Hospice appreciate the time and effort participants in this competition took to create their pieces of art,” said the charity’s Executive Director Cathy Belvedere.

“We hope that all the works help our residents, their families and the wider community to appreciate life more, the importance of being in the here and now and living fully, even where a terminal condition has been diagnosed,” she added.

“We applaud the work of Friends of Hospice in supporting Agape House and congratulate the winners and all the participants in the Being Alive contest,” said BHB President and CEO Venetta Symonds.” We are pleased to provide the public with palliative care in the hospice setting and know that these entries will add to the warm loving feeling residents and their families experience at Agape House.”

At Agape House every patient is treated with the utmost respect and encouraged to live life to the fullest. Staff are inspired, and try in turn to inspire patients, to follow the ideal of Dame Cecily Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement who said: ““You matter because you are you, and you matter to the last moment of your life.”